Battlefield 3 marches on 8 million sales

Eight million virtual soldiers have now deployed their money to the hands of merchants to buy Battlefield 3 and enlist in the virtual war, publisher Electronic Arts has revealed. If that figure were in elephants, it'd be eight million elephants.

Eight million virtual soldiers have now deployed their money to the hands of merchants to buy Battlefield 3 and enlist in the virtual war, publisher Electronic Arts has revealed. To put that figure into perspective, if it were in elephants, it'd be eight million elephants.

The revelation came from EA CFO Eric Brown during the Baird Technology Conference yesterday, Game Informer reports. Brown also noted that twelve million units have shipped in total; ten million of those had been shipped after the first week on sale.

After all the public bickering and squabbling between publishers, EA didn't come close to matching Activision's remarkable performance with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3--though this was undoubtedly expected. MW3 sold a whopping estimated 6.5 million units within the first 24 hours in the US and UK alone, and made $775 million within five days.

Developer DICE is continuing to work on fixing Battlefield 3 up. A hefty patch hit PlayStation 3 today and is due in Xbox 360 "soon." Beyond that, you may be surprised, shocked and astonished to hear that EA wants to make more Battlefield.